Head of Household
by Curiously Strong
Summary: What happens when everyone's favorite squad is thrown together for second tour of duty in Iraq? Will Sgt. Hotness ever forget Jamila? Where will the squad end up twenty years? Read to find out, comment to let me know what you think!
1. Prologue: FOB Marez: Monday

SSgt. Hotness has been getting on my nerves lately, begging to get some proper closure, so that's this story: **Head of Household**. No one's going to read it, but here are disclaimers anyway: _I did my best to make the military stuff accurate but don't hold your breath._ If anything in particular rankles to such a point you must tell me about it, drop me a line. I gave some people a raise, tied loose ends and had a lot of fun. **All the characters that appeared in the TV show remain the show's property.** The rest are mine and you can't have 'em, a'ight?

* * *

**PROLOGUE: FOB MAREZ - MONDAY**

"No, wait, no I can't hold; I just, I need to-"

"You have insufficient funds to continue this call," a computerized voice cut in. "Please contact customer service to add money to your account. Goodbye."

"Damn it!" SSgt. Silas growled, slamming down the phone in its cradle. This was the third phone card he finished in less than a week, and still he couldn't get past the ageless female voice on the other end of the mysterious number. _At least their hold music is good_, he thought.

Fishing out his wallet, Silas called the number in the back of the card, and followed the monotone prompts that led to forking over his credit card number in exchange for very expensive call-time to Virginia. Getting in touch with people who didn't exist was a bitch; and expensive too.

Dumphy walked into the Morale Welfare and Recreation tent as Silas pushed back his chair. The tall, lanky, private jumped, startled. SSgt. Silas cringed at the blurted observation he could feel coming, even before it was uttered. As if he'd read the Sergeant's mind, Pfc. Dumphy opened his mouth and closed it again, before taking the first seat available in the long bank of phones up against a wall.

His second tour with the same platoon was almost at its halfway mark, the whole squad roasting in the unforgiving Mosul heat that he'd hope would desensitize him to Pfc. Frank Dumphy. And yet the 24 year old still rated high on his list of pet peeves; somewhere between chow hall pears that were usually too ripe and the freak September rains making Mosul not only hot as hell, but uncomfortably humid to boot. Silas didn't find him as outspoken and downright annoying as that first tour when the ninety day extension grated like ground glass underfoot, but the Eau de Annoyance was there, cloying and inescapable.

He walked past their new, private toilets toward the even greater improvements: trailers; real, honest to goodness, air conditioned, two-man trailers. The sun was baking his uniform as he stepped on the wooden shipping crate he and SSgt. Murphy used as a porch. He opened the door and let the cold air hit him in the face. There should have been harp music in the background, but the hum on the A/C's compressor was heavenly enough.


	2. C1: The Country Club, Mosul: Friday

**CHAPTER 1: "THE COUNTRY CLUB," MOSUL - FRIDAY **

* * *

"I have Athlete's Foot."

"Dim, I didn't need to know that," Pfc. King muttered, swallowing the last of his plasticky beef stroganoff.

"Well it burns."

"Is it just when you pee, Dimwit?" Williams piped in, brushing dirt off the seat of his pants, and joining Dumphy and King as they headed back to the trucks. Lunch had taken place by the side of the road, in ten minute shifts.

King laughed with a snort, getting into the truck first. Tariq and the Sergeant were already seated, facing a squad of their Iraqi counterparts. Census duty was a month underway, and it seemed like it might go on forever at the pace they managed to get it done. This was supposed to be the squad's day off, their chance to hide in their air conditioned trailers and disconnect, but the timeline to finish the census had been shortened that morning.

Out of every ten houses, they considered it great results to be able to poll the three or four housewives who cracked open the door. The best efforts of a barrage of psych ops broadcasts as well as print and televised news were still rendering very few cooperative Iraqis. _No wonder_, Dumphy kept saying right and left, _everybody's glued to Superstar. _

"Did you see Nesma last night?" he asked one of the Iraqi soldiers who were part of their detail. The truck started chugging beneath them, moving back into the ramble of ugly, prefab buildings they'd been surveying before breaking for lunch. The man scrunched up his nose.

"Rihab better," he said.

"No way! She has no voice. Nashri has a better chance and he sings like a chicken!"

"What are you two talking about?" Silas asked exasperated from his end of the bench. He'd been stuck with a breakfast MRE due to lack of foresight in planning when they'd loaded the truck in the morning.

"SuperStar, Sarge. It's like American Idol but on al-Jazeera."

"And where are you watching al-Jazeera, Dim?" For this tour, Dumphy had dropped the sirs, but to Silas' continued displeasure, become attached to the dreaded Sarge, like it was a security blanket.

"Um they had it on at the barbershop. Nesma is really good but I don't think…" Catching a glimpse of his squad leader, Pfc. Dumphy let the sentence fizzle unfinished. He kept running into the sergeant, first by the phones, then in the line at Burger King and always seemingly unable to say one right thing.

In the truck's cabin, Brenda turned the truck into the puckered asphalt path leading to the crop of squat buildings she'd dubbed "The Country Club." Beside her, Del Rio stirred from a nap, and started adjusting her helmet and assorted equipment, ready to get down.

During polling, they separated into three groups of five, with one census taker and one woman in each group. Brenda and Esmeralda had memorized key phrases to appease any frazzled family units who found their presence soothing. Neither woman understood how their gender was any kind of assurance if they were as armed as the men. In any case, whatever tactic got them back to the base at the end of the day with the least number of angry Iraqis confronted was good enough for them. There was nothing valuable left in the truck by the time they headed toward the building. This was especially good considering they'd leave the vehicle in the care of two of the Iraqi soldiers who reminded everyone of Dumb and Dumber.


	3. C2: Al Bareed, Mosul: 3 Weeks Earlier

**CHAPTER 2: AL-BAREED, MOSUL - THREE WEEKS EARLIER **

* * *

Murphy replaced the radio on its cradle inside the oven-like up-armored humvee. He clicked his tongue. SSgt. Silas was sitting beside him in the driver's seat, with the rearview mirrors trained on a second floor apartment across the street. They'd returned from patrol to get a dehydrated newbie to one of the first aid trucks. The medic was working on the farm kid in their line of sight, having decided that saline would be enough to bring back the wilted soldier. 

"How long are you going to sit there, pining for that chick?" he asked. Silas shoved the rearview mirrors to their normal position, but didn't say anything. "You can't have thought that was gonna work out, right?" he added.

"Don't be stupid," Silas said at last. "How's Tucker?" He pointed at the medics.

"That does it. Get out of this frigging car. Come on." Murphy popped the door and rounded the humvee. Standing in front of the driver's side door, he tapped the hood.

"Are you-"

The fast, high-pitched tone of Murphy's voice spoke volumes of how little patience he had left. "Come on. I'm sick of you moping around like a basset hound, scaring all the women away. If you never wanna get laid again, that's your problem; but you are making it real hard for me too, so don't make me drag you out of that car, bitch."

Silas laughed, but followed Murphy. They crossed the street quickly and got through the gate as fast. No one had thought to remove the length of piano wire he'd wrapped around the latch two years earlier to be able to open the big door from the sidewalk. The stairs to the second floor were hidden from the street by a whim of the architect, and Silas never felt so thankful in his life. Murphy knocked on the door twice.

The quick, loud rap was barely audible to Silas, his heart beating louder in his ears with every second that they stood in the top apartment's porch. Someone turned the locks and pushed open the door.

"_**Hal beemkani mosa'adatuk**_?" a female voice asked, too quickly for Silas or Murphy to understand any of the words or attempt to translate them.

"_**Hal tatakallamu alloghah alenjleziah?**_" Silas asked in awkward Arabic, sure that he'd bungled every word in the simple '**do you speak English**.'

Their bristly host shook her head and closed the door. Silas knocked again. After a minute's wait, Murphy rapped on a window pane. The door flew open and the woman on the other side stepped into the tiny porch. For a second, Silas thought it was Jamila. The first glance was tricky; both women shared the same bone structure and build, the same skin tone. She stood there with an eyebrow raised in question. Silas realized he had no idea what he was going to say.

He went back to Al-Bareed every time he was stationed in northern Iraq, and he never passed by the building without looking for signs of life on the second floor. The family living there now was too large and too… Iraqi. Maybe the drab clothing on everyone he'd seen coming in and out was a sign of the uneasy situation in Mosul, but he had a hard time picturing Jamila in the sober black every woman seemed to wear lately. He'd been back a week after ripping Jamila's passports to shreds, after Lt. Benally left Camp Marez; but it'd been too late. The replacements were already in place, and she had vanished, without a trace.

"He's looking for Ja-mi-la," Murphy said breaking the lull. He spoke slowly, sounding out his words by the syllable. "She used to live here. Two years ago."

The woman shook her head. From inside the house a male voice yelled for her. In front of them, the housewife brought her hands to her hips and Silas saw the family resemblance again. The answer to the question was shouted, with attitude that seemed to flow from this older woman with the same charm and ease that worked for Jamila.

"Please," Silas said. "_**Min fadilak**_. Please." He saw faltering resolve in her eyes and watched her go inside the house. Sweat dripped from his head, down the back of his neck. The woman returned a minute later and handed him a scrap of notebook paper with a string of numbers scribbled in a corner. She said something else, fast and gruff, motioning for them to leave before she was done speaking.

Silas folded the piece of paper and tucked it away in a shirt pocket. He knew it was a phone number by the country code that started off the note. His heart felt a little lighter. It was too early in the chain of events for him to know this wasn't a number where he could reach Jamila directly, or that he'd have to spend over a $100 in phone cards before getting just a fraction closer to finding out what had happened to her.


	4. C3: The Country Club, Mosul: Friday

**CHAPTER 3: "THE COUNTRY CLUB," MOSUL – FRIDAY**

* * *

From their vantage point on the third floor, Esmeralda could see SSgt. Murphy's group busily counting Iraqis across the street in an offshoot of the same building complex. The section of Mosul they were polling was a cooperative-enough neighborhood known as Al-Hinna. In here, the huddled masses didn't show their disgust for the US and NATO troops by spitting on them during patrols, but it wasn't all fun and games either: like in Baghdad, there was no shortage of people willing to blow themselves up in the middle of a crowded street. The soldiers patrolling the business areas were also visible, but further away, just little dots walking up and down the open market streets. 

One team was posted by the stairs with an eye out for any activity out of the ordinary. Pfc. Maurice 'Smoke' Williams had disabled the elevators early in the morning, taking an essential part of its engine with him, then hiding the light-bulb in the control room to make it harder for anyone to figure out what was wrong. He'd accomplished this bit of extra security without clearing it with Silas or anyone else, lest they had a problem with the destruction of property. He'd planned to return the piece before leaving for the day.

Esmeralda's and Brenda's teams had fallen into a slow-moving rhythm as the day tried to make them sweat all the water they sucked from their hydration systems. The latter knocked on the door, standing beside the poll worker in his bright yellow shirt. They perked up at the sound of multiple hurried footsteps. A minute ticked by. When someone on the other side opened, they were treated to the sight of a skinny woman weighed down by the heavy fabric of her dress. The census worker began his canned speech.

Dumphy peered around the woman, trying to see further into the sparsely furnished apartment. He looked down at the paperwork the worker was filling out, and noticed the numbers didn't include the people they'd heard inside.

"Ask her about the other people, Ali," he said to the man. Ali glared at Dumphy and rattled off another set of questions.

"They not live in house, they family from Baghdad to be safe."

"Ask them how many," Dumphy said again. The little hairs on the back of his neck were on end, singing a loud Ranchera. "Doublewide, go get Tariq and Sgt. Scream."

"Two people more."

"You didn't ask, Ali."

"She say to me before."

"Tell her to call them out here, or we are going in."

"We take census information. We not look," Ali said through gritted teeth. He saw the loud sergeant approaching with the Iraqi traitor and the woman. In a quick second, the third floor erupted. Ali pushed in the woman into the apartment, hoping the black soldier with the SAW would be distracted, and threw himself at the annoying white kid who called himself 'Dim.' Hearing Ali's war cry, Tariq broke into a run, finger on the trigger.


	5. C4: Diamond District, London: Friday

**CHAPTER 4: Y H DIAMONDS LTD., LONDON – FRIDAY**

* * *

It was still Shabbat, so she was an anomaly on the damp sidewalk, in long, black leggings and a green pea coat. Her hair was tucked into a striped scarf, her hands shoved into leather gloves to combat the chill of a typical London summer. The peak hours had come and gone, leaving only the locals about the street. She passed men sporting long, curly peyot and sober coats, and women in very modest clothing and perfectly coiffed wigs. The two miles from the train station to the store were gone faster then she could have imagined, maybe because of the cold air spurring a faster pace. 

The storefront was dark, as she'd expected, but the space above the shops looked lively, conversation and light drifting down. She checked the address one last time and tugged on the bell's pull until a shadow approached the window.

"Yes?" an unsteady voice asked from above.

"Yaakov?"

"And the reason you interrupt my Shabbat-"

"We spoke at length on Thursday. I'm afraid I couldn't get away to see you until now," she said quickly.

"We cannot discuss this matter right now, but I'll send my boy to make you comfortable until the end of Shabbat."

"I cannot wait, Mr. Horowitz. Look at the sky; it's dark enough. Please."

Upstairs, the silhouetted man pondered his options. "Okay." He pulled away from the window. His framed filled the first floor threshold a minute later, and he opened the door, grumbling.

"Come into the back office, Madame," he said leading the way. They slipped through another narrow doorway and a motion sensor made the lights flicker on. Yaakov Horowitz pointed to a chair across from his. He pulled a diamond loupe out of its box and crossed his arms on the desk between him and the visitor.

"You are a hard man to track down Mr. Horowitz. I must have asked about your shop a dozen times."

"And this works for me, Madame. Now if you really have the Lesotho I, as you claimed on the telephone, I'd like to see it. My family is waiting for me upstairs." Yaakov watched intently as his guest pushed a gray jewel case to his half of the desk.

His fingers pried open the box, loupe at the ready. The exquisite diamond inside took his breath, its champagne glint magnified under the looking glass. It'd taken Yaakov the bulk of his life to track down the gems that made up the original Lesotho, and he'd given up on recovering the largest of its pieces after hearing of the insurance payout by Lloyds of London, until the previous week, when he'd answered the phone and the diamond practically fell on his lap.

"I can give you £250,000 for the stone, Madame."

"No, Mr. Horowitz, you can give me a lot more, but it's a good starting point," she said smiling coolly.

"This diamond is worthless, Madame."

"Call me Jamila."

"I cannot trade this stone, nor display it in my store. Lloyds of London paid off a very hefty insurance policy to its former owner," Yaakov said without tearing his eyes from the loupe. "As far as the free market is concerned your diamond does not exist. I can only sell it piecemeal. Surely you must be aware that its true value is in the hefty size."

"But you and I know you won't cut it up, Mr. Horowitz. You tried to buy the Lesotho I from my late husband in 2000. You've been aching for the whole of it since Harry Winston's bid beat yours in 1967."

"You've done your homework, I am impressed."

"Lloyds of London paid my late husband's heir three million pounds. I imagine you've verified the authenticity of the appraisals I faxed you?"

"Indeed."

"I am prepared to accept a third of its appraised value, Mr. Horowitz. The Lesotho I can be yours for only a million pounds."

"I'm afraid I cannot agree to those terms. I can only pay £750,000 for your stone. It is stolen property."

Yaakov and Jamila smiled at the same time, each content with the new price. Neither knew that Yaakov would have paid the required million or that Jamila would have settled for £500,000.


	6. C6: The Country Club, Mosul: Friday

**CHAPTER 5: "THE COUNTRY CLUB," MOSUL – FRIDAY**

* * *

"They're jumping, they're jumping!" Dumphy yelled to Del Rio as she straddled Ali's back, struggling to get cuffs on his wrists.

"Who?" she shot back.

Pfc. Mitchell planted a boot on the Ali's back, the business end of her M16 pointed at the hairy spot where his eyebrows met.

"These fuckers, Jesus, they're gonna get away!" Heart loud in his ears, Dumphy ran to the balcony where the last of the pair who'd run out of the apartment was lowering himself onto the second floor. His mind was a swirl as the first runner climbed out a dumpster full of trash and the second dived in feet first. The gears clicking in Dumphy's brain stopped analyzing pros and cons, and he mimicked the men. With a foot over the brick railing he yelled to Esmeralda.

"Out back, Doublewide, tell 'em to go around the building!"

No longer hesitant, Dumphy looked down at the lower balcony one more time and let go of his grasp on the top. His shins took the brunt of the impact of the drop, leaving him breathless for a second. A minute later, he was climbing out of the trash can and following the Iraqis down the prickly hedge around the courtyard walls.

"Be quiet," Esmeralda seethed, glaring at the gaggle of women they'd recouped from the last surveyed apartment.

The crassness was out of character for her but then this was her sixth trip down the stairs dragging a whimpering prisoner and she was missing her son's fourth birthday. The halfway point of her second tour in Iraq was still a month away. She was looking forward to the two weeks worth of R&R but the heat seemed to make time expand like asphalt and railroad tracks under the ruthless sun.

She helped the woman up to the back of the truck. Brenda was posted between the rest of the prisoners, sweating by the bucket, but still effectively killing any urge for the detainees to talk amongst themselves. The census workers were tied up too, but unlike everyone else, they'd been treated to hoods to go with their FlexiCuffs. For a second, being with Dumphy and SSgt. Silas seemed a little more appealing, if anything because the time would go by faster than sitting in the sweltering heat, breathing in the lovely smell of sweat and diesel.


	7. C7: The Country Club, Mosul: Friday

**CHAPTER 6: "THE COUNTRY CLUB," MOSUL – FRIDAY**

* * *

As he lost his footing, Dumphy was sure his life expectancy had been shortened to mere minutes. The slower of the two men he'd been foolishly pursuing alone saw him go down. Where the skinny man should have picked up the AK47 on his back and finished him off, the man simply yelled into a radio and kept going, right into the building.

"Goddamn it," Dumphy half muttered, half whined, trying to put weight on the ankle he'd twisted. He heard boots on the trampled hedges and tried again. Knowing SSgt. Silas, Dumphy was sure he'd rather be in the building without backup than in the courtyard where it would soon be made obvious how stupid he'd really been by going after the fleeing Iraqis just because. The second time he tried to put weight on his foot, the pain wasn't as excruciating. SSgt. Silas and Tariq were out of the hedges and closing when he rushed through the entrance.

He followed the fresh mud trail down the long, dark hallway, noting someone had gone to the trouble of smashing every one of the caged light bulbs in the hall. The silence struck him at last. He'd made an instinctive turn, even when the mud was no longer visible. Dumphy stopped, pushed himself against the wall and fumbled through pockets, trying to find his NVGs. He was still crouching when he saw the men again, walking now, across a hallway on his left.

Dumphy stopped moving and counted to ten, hoping it'd be long enough for a head start without losing them altogether. He hugged wall and moved slowly, holding his weapon tightly against his body. He peeked around the corner and counted dark doorways to get an idea of where the Iraqis were standing. He also prayed SSgt. Silas and Tariq would not choose that very moment to come to his rescue. The men went into an apartment and he finally exhaled, creeping closer as well.

Breathing through his mouth now, King and Williams joined Tariq and SSgt. Silas where they'd taken cover outside the building. The only three Iraqi policemen they actually trusted were with them, having shed the others back at the truck. They wouldn't have been very useful anyway. A quick check of their magazines by a screaming Silas had revealed the men'd sold their daily ration of bullets at the market, keeping only five for personal use. Hassan and Habib dropped behind cover, their weapons trained on the building. London educated Imad squat beside SSgt. Silas.

"The hallways on the first floor look like back to back Es," he said. Imad recognized the basic layouts of most of the buildings in this area, having studied Al-Hinna during his pre-war life, when he went to work in a suit, not body armor. "They'd probably set up on the first floor, closer to the back, but away from exterior windows."


	8. C8: The Country Club, Mosul: Friday

**CHAPTER 7: "THE COUNTRY CLUB," MOSUL – FRIDAY**

* * *

If following two armed men by himself was stupid, barging into their apartment was about to blow stupid off the charts. Dumphy wondered if he should go back, and he knew the answer was an unequivocal yes, but the part of his brain that processed those thoughts seemed to be taking ta lunch break. He pressed his ear to the door, but found it useless with his helmet getting in the way. Removing it was out of the question. Impulsive or not, even Frank Dumphy had convinced himself it was usually best to keep a thick layer of Kevlar around his brain at all times. He cracked open the door and slid in.

Inside the apartment, Dumphy stood with his back to the wall and swept the front room. The windows were blacked out with cardboard and tape and the space relatively clean, if also empty. A door swung open in the kitchen across the room, fanning the back hallway. He stood still for two seconds, finger on the trigger as his ears and the little hairs on the back of his neck did the bulk of the recon work. The smell of gasoline lingered heavy in the still air, and then he picked it up, among the quieter sounds of the building: retreating footsteps, growing fainter and fainter until they were gone.

Frank started running again, planning to follow the runners' paths. His progress was short lived. The sheer speed of hurling his body forward and cutting through the length of the living room ruffled the loose paper covering the bathroom floor. He swung right, into the tiny room. The smell of gasoline was strongest here, soaking stacks of notebooks on the tub and all the paper on the floor. Pre-paid phones filled a toilet bowl and sink to the brim. He poked the barrel of his M4 at the contents of the tub, whispering an inaccurate Hail Mary in the process.

Beneath the notebooks, a laptop computer looked like the textbook definition of collateral damage, with ten bullet holes twisting its plastic frame. Dumphy bent at the knees to get a closer look at the papers. Everything was written in Arabic, some of the sheets too wet for him to make out any of the writing, even if his knowledge of the language were any good. He had barged in on the Iraqis before they got a chance to light a match. In another fit of 'just because,' he started stuffing notebooks between his body armor and his uniform, until they were packed together so closely they couldn't slip out. Next, Dumphy started fishing out phones from their pools of water and gasoline, checking the first few for SIM cards.

Dumphy unloaded a vegetarian MRE and a couple of promising rocks he'd been saving for Eddy, throwing everything he could spare on the tub to make room for the phones. Cramming as many of them into his pockets as he could, he leaned on the sink, bulging with what he hoped would turn up enough usable dirt on the Iraqis to make up for the bit about going into the apartment on his own. As Dumphy turned to leave, his helmet struck the medicine cabinet's door. The mirror on the door gave him a glimpse of the bedroom, and the green numbers he'd missed on the first, hurried inspection.

"Shit," he said, his skin crawling, his heartbeat jumping to the hundreds.

A VCR's clock was counting down numbers, bright red wires hooked to an obscenely large, 155mm artillery shell. They'd never planned to set the apartment on fire, just to blow it up and call it a day. The gasoline had been overkill. Another second slipped by before his brain told his feet to run. With little more than a minute to spare, he made a right at the door, and started sprinting so fast his lungs felt like he was breathing fire.

And then it happened; he slammed against a Tariq rounding the second corner, tumbling to the floor on top of him. SSgt. Silas pulled him off, yelling at him, using words he couldn't understand over whatever he was screaming himself. More beautiful seconds got away, as he realized he'd been counting down the time as he ran.

"IED," he managed between harsh breaths. "Big."

They only felt the hellish tug of the shock wave, no bang, no flash of light, nothing.


	9. C9: Landstuhl, Germany: Saturday

**CHAPTER 8: LANDSTUHL, GERMANY – SATURDAY**

* * *

"Guys, they're coming around," the nurse said peeking up from the behind her station like a groundhog. "You can go in two at a time."

A younger, male nurse emerged from the same station. "Who's going into see private first class Dumphy?" Everyone raised their hand. Unfazed, the man handed out the two visitor passes in his grasp to Mitchell and Del Rio.

"SSgt. Silas has a visitor right now but he should be ready in a few minutes," the man added, showing them the door across the hall from Dumphy. "You can just sit on those chairs and I'll get you when he's free." _He'll probably throw you all out in thirty seconds anyway_, he thought to himself.

The moment was as unlikely as it was lucky. Mitchell, Del Rio, King, Williams and a recently discharged Tariq had been granted weekend passes, and permission to hop on a C130 to Landstuhl alongside their new, inexperienced, but thus far competent lieutenant. Furthest from the blast, Tariq had escaped with a bump to the head that excused him from any duty that required a helmet, but didn't keep him at the FOB hospital after his CAT scan results came through.

He owed this to Frank Dumphy. Pfc. Dumphy had been heavily reprimanded for his idiocy, and praised for recovering the notebooks and the phones that were still keeping a dozen 96 Bravos busy as all get out. Dumphy didn't remember mowing Tariq to the ground a second time, or sheltering him from the scorching fire that snaked out of the apartment and made his boots melt, and his uniform stick to his skin, and singed his hair and made his body armor feel like he was wearing a hot plate. Still on his feet, SSgt. Silas had been posed to make a safer landing, diving around a further corner until the shockwave threw him heel first into a wall.

While Dumphy had been hurt the worst, he was still in a happy morphine cloud, growing a new layer of skin in his isolation tent, with a nurse who –at the soldier's request– never let him miss a second of the SuperStar reruns on Al-Jazeera. His visitors could see him from an anteroom that kept a wall of glass and concrete between them and Dumphy's skin grafts. As Mitchell and Del Rio went in, Dumphy started singing a Broadway tune.

"Time to lower his morphine," the nurse told them, smiling from behind the glass. "Press the white button to talk."

"Traction does not suit you, SSgt. Silas," Col. Ryan said flicking an offending bit of dirt off the toe of his boot. The sergeant was clad in an ill fitting hospital gown, an IV in each arm, a tortured grimace on his face, and his left leg in a cast that started in his upper thigh and let his toes peek out of the end.

"No, sir, it doesn't," he managed through clenched teeth. Despite the low dose morphine drip that was supposed to make pain feel more like discomfort, the complicated system of weights keeping his leg in the air made thought of splitting all his visitor's heads open very tempting. And his foot itched like hell.

"You okay, sergeant? Need a nurse?"

"No, sir," SSgt. Silas hurried to reply. "It just my foot. It itches."

"Arch or heel?" Ryan asked getting up from his chair. He crossed the room to the dresser holding the Sergeant's PT uniform. The pants and shirt were sharing a hanger and he folded both items, and left them on the top shelf.

"Heel, Sir."

"You are probably wondering why I'm here, right, Sergeant?" Ryan asked; his fingers busy on the hanger. He twisted the wire counterclockwise and straightened it.

"Yes, Sir. Was there something missing from my after action report?"

"I'm not here about that," Ryan said smiling. Silas didn't know how to interpret the colonel's mischievous grin, nor did he care to learn. The man approached him and slid the straightened hanger into SSgt. Silas's cast. "Tell me where it itches."

"Right there!" he said sighing with relief as the cold metal touched his heel. "Sir," he added as a contented afterthought. "Thank you."

"No problem. Nearly went nuts myself when they did that to me."

"You broke your leg, sir? Was it an open fracture?" Silas asked, suddenly interested in analyzing the Colonel's gait. He'd been promised he should walk without a problem after a few rounds of physical therapy, but he didn't want to get too excited about anything his orthopedist said. The man looked about twelve. "Was it recent?"

"Bosnia." Ryan muttered, in a tone that clearly marked the end of the current line of questioning. "You'll be as good as new in six months. I'm actually here hoping you can help me figure out who's been calling a secure line in Langley from our Moral Welfare and Recreation building, SSgt. Silas, especially since they seem to be trying to reach someone who doesn't actually exist. Do you have any idea what that could be about?"

"I might, Sir," SSgt. Silas said after a minute's deliberation.

"Would I be correct in assuming you were the one making all those phone calls?" Silas didn't get a chance to speak before Ryan resumed his questioning. "And that your only interest in this person who doesn't exist stems out of your unauthorized relationship with an intelligence asset during your last tour?"

"Yes," he replied, paling visibly. Silas wanted to ask a hundred questions. What happened to Jamila? Was she okay? Was she safe? Was she even alive? Was he in immeasurable trouble for getting involved with her despite his orders and all the common sense he'd ignored? Who else knew about hem? Self preservation kicked in and he kept his mouth shut.

As if reading his mind, Col. Ryan replied: "The asset was relocated two years ago, at her handler's request. Your involvement was documented at the time, but as you can guess, reprimanding someone for being involved in an event that never happened is a little harder than you'd expect."

"Is any-"

"However," Ryan interrupted, "this could be arranged, Sergeant. I can be very creative if need be. Don't give me a reason."

"Yes, Sir."

"Good, Sergeant. Good." Col. Ryan walked back to his chair and picked up the items he'd brought into the room with him: a purple jewel case and a leather-bound certificate display. "Here's another Purple Heart for you collection. You trying to break a record or something, Sergeant?" he asked, placing both items next to Silas' lunch.

"No, Sir."

Col. Ryan left the room without any further comments. SSgt. Silas unwrapped his sandwich and peeked at the wilted veggies sitting between layers of wheat bread and mayo. His stomach flipped at the thought of putting any of it in his mouth. He drained a juice box and finished his apple in a couple of bites, saving the Jell-O for last.

He opened his second OIF Purple Heart, and then threw it on the nightstand beside his hospital bed. He did the same with the certificate, but it coughed up a business card before he could go back to sulking and ignoring the world. Silas winced trying to reach for the card. He sat up, reached for the tense cable holding up his leg and breathing hard through his mouth, unhooked it from the weights. It gave him enough freedom to reach the card with the tip of his fingers. He retrieved it; his face bent in an odd mixture of delight and pain. Once it was safe in his hand, he pushed the called button for the nurse.


	10. C10: Trafalgar Sq, London: 4 Mos Later

**CHAPTER 9: TRAFALGAR SQUARE, LONDON - 4 MONTHS LATER**

* * *

Silas had made it a point to be there early. They'd talked on the phone briefly, with a lot of background noise in their way, and he wanted every possible extra second. It wasn't a great imposition on his current schedule, in fact the early hour suit him just fine. The tiny room he had reserved online was not friendly to people in walking casts. He barely fit in the narrow bed. The TV picked up three English-language channels and they all sucked. It was like reliving his hellish trip in a coach seat, crammed from La Guardia to Heathrow without so much as room to breathe.

There were few tourists in the square at nine in the morning, and the Londoners were too busy getting to and fro to bother with sight seeing. It was the pigeon's domain now, and it would be so for another hour or so, until the day warmed up a few more degrees.

He didn't see Jamila at first, distracted by the gaggle of children around the adults in her party. Once he focused on the grown-ups, he recognized her at once, despite her colorful headscarf and the large sunglasses on her face. Her party crossed the square and climbed the steps to the National Gallery on the north. She disappeared in the terrace between the people and the columns.

Several minutes later, as the uniformed children filed into the museum; she started down the stairs, and began to close the distance between them. Silas could only stare. The collar of her knee length leather coat was trimmed in luscious, cream coloured fur. She looked different, in western clothes, older, more confident. Her make-up was light, and functional, and so where the shoes. Round toes, flat soles, simple. The showiest piece on her was the headscarf with its vintage purple print on a darker background. He'd seen it on his SkyMall catalog the previous day, as the plane rushed over Belgium on the last leg of the trip. She sat down next to him.

"Hi."

"God, you're beautiful," Silas stammered. Jamila smiled.

"I told myself I wouldn't believe you were really in London until I saw you."

They were quiet for a long time.

"Who was the man that answered the phone?"

"You don't waste words, do you, Sergeant?"

Silas realized that in his nervousness he'd been trying to drink coffee out of an empty cup. It fell on the trash can nearby on his first attempt at a slam dunk. "Two years is enough, don't you think?"

"That was Hadi," Jamila said. "He is my sister's husband. I live in their house in Westminster." A phone started vibrating in her handbag. "What about you? Did you marry Marilyn Monroe and buy a farm?" she asked silencing the intruder.

"Nah." He smiled.

This time, they interrupted each other's next question. "You go first," she said.

"How did you get here? How did you get to London?"

Jamila rooted through her purse. She peeled a granola bar and broke off a piece. Wise to the sounds of breakfast, the pigeons flocked to her.

"About a week after the last time I saw you, there was a knock at the door. It felt very surreal but an American asked me to verify my old password. He said I had to get my passport and go with him at once. I climbed into an SUV waiting in the street. I couldn't see anything through the tinted windows. We drove for a while, and at one point we switched cars in an empty road." Jamila broke off another piece of her granola bar, and threw it at the hungry birds.

"After we stopped, I was told to stay in the car. A woman came in. She gave me a change of clothes and exchanged my real passport for a diplomatic passport. I was told a man would be waiting for me at Heathrow and he'd seek me out. I changed and I was driven to the airport. In London I cleared customs in fifteen minutes and the man was there, waiting. He collected the diplomatic passport and dropped me off at my sister's house without saying a word. It was 4:00 AM but she was waiting for me and the oddest thing is that she had my Iraqi passport, but it'd been stamped with a refugee visa."

"Sounds interesting," Silas said after a long silence. He tried to imagine being asked to do the same thing just to leave a country, but came up blank. It would never happen to him.

"Thank you," she said looking at him.

"What?"

"I know you had something to do with that. I don't need to know how, but I'm still thankful."

Silas didn't say anything.

"How'd that happen?" she asked pointing at his leg.

"IED," he said matter-of-factly.

"I hate that stupid word. It's a bomb! Do they think the initials make them any less deadly?"

"That baby in the stroller…" Silas said letting the sentence fizzle out on purpose.

"Adam. He'll be two years old in March."

"Am I his father?"

Jamila nodded her reply.

"You should have said something, baby girl."

"There was nothing you could do, Sergeant," she said slowly; taking a deep breath. "You would have been in trouble with the Army and worried about me for nothing."

"Don't call me that, please."

"What?"

"Sergeant. It's… you've been the reason I wake up for two years, Jamila. I love you. I did everything I could to stop thinking about you, but I couldn't. I don't- I'm not sure how you feel about me or whether getting on that plane yesterday will turn out to be the stupidest thing I've ever done but I couldn't not see you, and-"

Jamila's gloved hand caressed the side of his face, stopping the nervous volley of words. She smiled cautiously at first, then grinned. "I love you too, Chris."


	11. Epilogue: Ann Arbor, MI: 20 Years Later

And so the end arrives. This is the 'Where Are They Now' chapter that no melodramatic piece of fanfiction could possibly do without. Tariq's wife, Ciara, is the creation of fellow FF member Navycorpsman. More of Ciara can be found in Navy's story "The Homecoming." All standard disclaimers still apply. Drumroll PLEASE!

* * *

Epilogue - Ann Arbor, MI - 20 Years Later

* * *

Ten hours in a car made pulling into the Nassiri driveway feel like mooring La Niña in the Bahamas after five weeks at sea. For Silas and Jamila, the day had started much earlier, with a nonstop flight from Anchorage that ended four hours short of its intended destination. December's first snowstorm was fast approaching, and rather than waiting it out in Minneapolis, as the airline suggested, they'd rented a Suburban, and finished the trip by land. When Jamila started for the porch, the first few flakes were beginning to fall.

"You're finally here! I was about to send a search party," Tariq's wife said throwing open the front door before her guests had a chance to knock.

"Ciara!"

"Come on in, aren't you guys cold?" she asked rubbing her hands together. Silas and Jamila's clothes were more Southern California than Winter in Ann Arbor, but a decade of living in Alaska had built up their tolerance to the cold. "What am I talking about? This is probably as warm as it gets up there in the summer, right?"

"It was pretty warm in August," Silas said shedding a knit beanie. At 56, his hair was more salt than pepper, and cropped very short to disguise this fact. "It got up to seventy, right, baby?"

"Tariq is in the library with Smoke, Chris," Ciara said. "You should go rescue Smoke before Tariq breaks out the vacation slides."

MSgt. Christopher Silas (Retired) looked at her with a hint of relief. While his social graces had come a very long way with Jamila's influence, he was like most men in a similar situation: as communicative as a rock.

"Come on back here, I've got the girls holed up in the den," Ciara said to Jamila, leading the way down a long hallway that doubled as a family portrait gallery.

Tariq and Ciara were on first; as kids in Detroit. She was holding a large lizard in front of Tariq's nose, his eyes crossed as they focused on the squirming creature. Prom pictures, Army pictures, wedding pictures, baby pictures, school plays, ski vacations. They passed a large kitchen, the smell of dinner lingering around it, and came upon more photos. Tariq and Ciara in India; on an elephant with the Jumma Mosque in the background. Ciara shopping in Jerusalem. Tariq five years earlier, visiting a Baghdad bazaar looking every inch the Middle Eastern Studies professor that he was, accompanied by his first graduate class.

They ran out of walls and stopped. The den was the largest room in the house, divided into functional thirds with a TV area, a cozy reading nook on the opposite end, and a collection of sofas in the middle that didn't match a central theme, but fit seamlessly anyway. Vanessa stood up first, reaching Jamila at the halfway point. They hugged tightly.

"Welcome to civilization!" Vanessa said laughing.

Both women took a step back to look at each other. Despite their close friendship, Vanessa hadn't been in the United States for eleven years. Jamila untied the knot keeping her headscarf in place. Even at 46, her hair was a rich chestnut brown, but then she never missed an appointment at the salon. Vanessa wasn't as religious in that aspect. Her hair had grayed evenly at the crown, which now matched the red in equal parts.

"I'm sorry about Frank," Jamila whispered to her friend.

"Thank you." They hugged again. "For the flowers and for your help with Monster in Law. Without you, I'd never have been able to bury him in peace."

"I kept hoping you'd reconsider and let me feed her to the wolves."

"What did the wolves ever do to you?" Vanessa asked laughing.

Five months earlier, Jamila had been busy trying to cook a chicken without actually touching it –Chris did all most of the cooking in their house- when Vanessa's collect call from Iraq interrupted her best efforts. Frank had died unexpectedly, felled by a heart attack on his 46th birthday. Without Jamila's help, Frank's mother would succeed in claiming the body and taking her son from his life's work in the Dohuk village in Northern Iraq where he taught primary school; just to be buried in a meaningless slot of earth where the rest of the Dumphys were interred.

Vanessa and Frank had divorced years earlier, and even though their relationship was better than in its married days, she had no power to stop the process. With Eddy's help, Jamila had changed Celia Dumphy's mind.

"I'd get up to hug you, but Ciara sent away the tow truck," Brenda said from her spot on one of the couches. She was pregnant with her seventh child, and four days overdue.

"Sweetheart," Jamila said bending over to greet her, "I think Vanessa's gonna have to explain the laws of probability to you again. This is your sixth girl. If you and Maurice want a boy, you're going to have to trade Sergio and Esmeralda for one of theirs."

"I just want this thing out of me," Brenda whined. "I haven't seen my feet in so long, I'm pretty sure I have three of them now."

"Where are the Del Rios anyway?" Jamila sat down by Brenda. "I know Bo and Terry are stuck in Texas preparing The Aggies for the Cotton Bowl, but Sergio has no excuse. I'm starving."

"Esmeralda won't be able to make it either. There was an issue with one of the new drills in the platform and she had to fly back to Singapore," said Brenda.

Brenda and Esmeralda lived in adjacent houses in Richmond. When Esmeralda wasn't jetting off to train a client on one of the drills she designed and sold to every oil company drilling in the South China Sea, they shared a backyard pool and tried to keep track of the large number of children each woman had borne through the years.

To widespread surprise among the group, after failed marriages to other people, Maurice 'Smoke' Williams, and Brenda 'Mrs. B' Mitchell had married the day after she retired from the military. The construction firm they ran together in Virginia handled over eighty million dollars in contracts every year. Brenda had successfully outgrown her nickname, while Maurice had simply managed to change the meaning of his.

Ciara reappeared in the den holding a six-pack of juice boxes, still encased in hard, plastic shrink-wrap.

"I just talked to Avery and Laura," she said referring to Avery 'Angel' King, and his wife. "They weren't as lucky as Chris and Jamila who got to spend all that quality time on the road together, and they got snowed-in in Alexandria."

"Then let's drink in their honor!" Vanessa said holding out a hand to catch the grape juice that Ciara threw in her direction. "Oh this is a great vintage," she said turning over the box in her hand.

"Actually I have some news that we need to toast," Ciara continued, handing out the rest of the juice. She cleared her throat. "As you all know, my 45th birthday is coming up in a week." She smiled. "I was a little depressed about getting older, so Tariq did his best to cheer me up, and it worked 'cause I'm pregnant. We're gonna have baby number three!"

Ciara's laughter joined a chorus of hoots, and congratulations. "You know what this means, right?" she asked looking at Brenda, picking up the thread of an earlier conversation. "Unless Vanessa or Jamila can top my news, I get the thirteenth brownie."

"Oh, no you don't!" Brenda cut in. "My nipples look like plates, and I have six new stretch marks in my butt. If anyone deserves the thirteenth brownie, it's me."

"Wait, wait," Jamila said raising her hand. "I have some news too, and I think you'll all agree, that brownie is in the bag."

"You are pregnant with sextuplets?" Vanessa asked trying to keep a straight face.

"No, it's even rarer." Jamila set down her empty juice box. "My lovely Aisha actually managed to convince her father that finishing university in Anchorage is going to hurt her career, and that she needs to transfer to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor."

"Indeed," Ciara piped in. "Chris and Jamila are staying a couple extra days to tour the campus with my renowned husband, the tenured professor."

"Chris was a little reluctant at first," Jamila continued. "His little girl is going to be 4,000 miles away! But she went to work on convincing Dad, and he was hopeless. She's even convinced Chris and Adam to help her move in."

"Obviously, Aisha deserves the thirteenth brownie," Vanessa said. "Just tell her to make sure Daddy doesn't rewire the doorbell to shock her dates!" she added.

The smell of roast turkey had taken over the back of the house, but it's true reach became apparent as Tariq, Silas and Maurice appeared at the foot of the stairs, following the scent like a Garfield comic strip. The oven timer dinged from the kitchen.

"Food!" seven voices cried in unison.


End file.
